Fujifilm FinePix F11 Zoom

Opinion: Great IQ only some pf.
Lower noise reduction than F30/31.

Opinion: This camera does a good job in low light and indoor situations but think twice if you are going to be doing a lot of outdoor shooting.

Opinion: Fully agree with megamar, 23 Feb 06. Pictures are too blurred, even with ISO 80. I never could take sharp macro, compared to Sony DSC-w55 and Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, tried many different options. Is it optical or internal processor issue, don't know. I own this camera for 2 years.
Pros: excellent battery life, can take camera for a week vacation and forget the charger, of course if you don't take too many pictures, 500 or so.
Very fast operation.
Manual shutter and aperture control, but this I really use very rare.
Menus are with explanation, for instance changing resolution can see the size and amount of pictures left.

Cons: Pictures are too much blurred.
XD cards expensive and not even faster then basic SD.

Opinion: Great camera, showing that Fujifilm leads the way with low light photography,
might have been superceeded by the F30/ F31 however I still prefer taking this little
camera to gigs as it has the tough screen over the LCD. Quality solid build - full
manual control - does everything you want and will need.

If you want a compact camera to take to gigs this is the one - set it to ISO 400,
turn
the flash off and point and shoot, you will not be disappointed with the images
produced. Even the images taken at ISO 800 are very usable.

Great battery life - over 500 shots on one charge of the battery

Opinion: Great little camera, but mine was faulty...

Nicely built and solid feel, though I don't like the exposed power button on the top as it's too easy to turn on accidentally.

Size is larger than the Canon IXUS range, though still quite convenient.

Available light performance was excellent as expected, and image sharpness was also excellent.

Sunlight performance was disappointing, with excessive contrast (and no means to adjust this). Lack of histogram makes it very difficult to determine whether exposure was correct, and the exposure compensation is hidden in a submenu.

Opinion: I bought the Fujifilm FinePix F11 some days ago and had time to test it a bit. This is my second digital camera, the first was a Nikon Coolpix 4300 (it's being repaired currently). It was a very hard descision, because I was very much in love with my old camera.
From the reviews here and the web I was already aware of the strong points of this camera and I was only positively surprised that it was indeed true. However there are some caveats as well and it took me 3 days and extensive research on the net before I chose this one. The final shootout was between the Nikon P4 and the F11. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to try them out, so the descision was all made on 3rd party opinions and internet reviews. Now I can add my own.

Pro:
1. The camera performs really really well in low light situations. But then, you probably know that already. You can safely choose ISO 800, you won't get much noise, if any. So you can shoot indoor with low shutter speeds and no flash. Since I almost never use flash, because I hate flash, this was a perfect!
And because of the AF-assist lamp you get sharp shots in dark situations. I shot about the same situation in a café that I shot with my 4300 several days in the past (when it still worked) and the results are stunning. The 4300 had a lot of noise and needed a long shutter time so that the persons were blurred, had I not told them to keep still a little. The F11 just took 1/4s exposure time at ISO 800 and probably 1/8s could be done as it was slightly overexposed.
2. The camera was a lot quicker than my old 4300 and I really liked that. Of course you can expect that, but then again, this was the reason I did not go for the P4, which was said to take its time in the review here. The F11 is quite quick. You press Power on and it's there. The Autofocus speed is okay, could be a little bit faster (even on High-Speed) but can also take its time when there is really very low light and you take a macro. This wasn't a bummer though. You can take three pics consecutively quite fast, then you need to wait a little while. 3 pics is also the setting for the continous mode (first 3 or last 3) which shoots them quickly. There is also a 40 frame continous mode, but that is slower (about 0.7fps)
3. The display size and quality is great. Be careful with scratches though!
4. The menu is superb and fast. You can adjust options quickly and easily. There's an extra button for accessing ISO, Quality and Color settings (standard, chromatic and b&w). There is annoying click sound, but it can be turned off (or turned quieter if you like click sounds).
5. There are aperture and shutter priority settings
6. The battery recharges in the camera and there is no extra DC-in. Guess how surprised I was not to find one. There is a 3-way adapter that you plug into the USB interface on the camera that provides you with USB, DC and AV. Apart from being a little bit of a cable mess it's quite small, lightweight and (using some cablebinders) handy. Certainly a plus when travelling!
7. Battery time is another plus. The reviewers are right when they say that you don't need to care about getting a second battery.
8. The body is metal and solid, except for the plastic battery door, which is.. well.. plastic. The size is nice, it's not an ultracompact, but fits in the pocket nicely.

Con:
1. Image Quality, unfortunately is worse than with my 4300, not in indoor situations, but outdoor. I can't exactly state the reason, the pictures of the F11 have a slightly cheaper look. That's especially the case when you have a mix of over and underexposed areas. I think it's hard for any camera to do well then. The pictures are also a little bit bluer than they should be, but e.g. Picasa's Auto-Color deals with that just fine, or you can choose different WB setting (I like mine more yellowish). I didn't like the chromatic color setting so much, though I guess it's great for printing.
Purple fringing is there, but I haven't had a problem with it so far.
Probably what is worse than with the 4300 is the range. Overexposed areas are quickly left without detail. Still, note the rating. I give it a 4, which is good.
2. 3x zoom is not that much.
3. The video option is definately an improvement over my 4300 (640x480@30fps vs 320x240@15fps), but there is a loud annoying short tone in the audio whenever the camera adjusts to brightness. E.g. take a video, point it to a very bright source and back to a very dark source and you'll hear an annoying sound in the video which is the noise the camera makes when adjusting. Since I don't like sound with my videos anyway, that's not so much a problem with me, but it's definately something worth considering.

Overall I am okay with the camera and pretty much got what I hoped and even exceeding that, as I could not really believe it. Unfortunately, the image quality outdoor has not convinced me. It's far from bad of course(!) but I guess I was spoiled by my 4300. On the other hand, when shooting indoor the 4300 hasn't even the slightest chance to compete. Well since the 4300 is being repaired I've got a nice smaller camera to take outdoors and a nice small camera to take indoors.
As with outdoor pictures and the F11 for now, I have to be a little more careful for choosing the scene (watching for overexposed areas) and do a little bit more after shot editing than I did with the 4300. I found out that Picasa's Auto-Color followed by the I'm feeling lucky filter gives most pictures (indoor+outdoor) a good color feeling very quickly.

As for the FinePix F11 vs Coolpix P3/P4 descision: That's a hard one! At least based on the assumption that the P4 does produce better outdoor pictures, which I would expect it to do, but can only assume! If that's not the case, well then it's a piece of cake and the F11 wins.
In the end the Nikon CoolPix P4 had several things that disturbed me a lot, the most important being the bad shot-to-shot performance and the absence of aperture priority and shutter priority settings (how could they!?).
I am really enjoying the new camera.

As for FinePix F11 vs F30: The F11 currently is considerably cheaper (88€ / $112) and it's uncertain if the F30 is worth the extra money.

If you like to see some of my fotos, check them out at http://www.flickr.com/photos/donandre/tags/finepixf11/
Currently there are only 3, but I'll keep adding new ones.

Opinion: Very solidly built, excellent responsiveness (time lag), excellent high ISO shots, very good dynamic range and handling of highlights (no highlight shifts), almost film-look colour reproduction and very easy to use. Nice photo mode shortcut button.
This is a very ample camera and a real jewel to hold. It can produce stunning images for serious use for the more demanding photographers. Thanks to the big CCD size for its class, the high ISO actually works and the images at ISO 1600 are more than acceptable.
Fujifilm visely addressed more important issues of image quality, instead of racing for the pixel count.
Being a serious photographer working mainly on film, I was surprised with the prints that showed bold and detailed look characteristic to film.
On the negative side, the camera lacks a histogram preview and the default settings tend to overexpose the images by 1/3 stop. LCD gamma is also too bright and the middtones look much lighter than on a propperly set display. Macro can't really focus very close. Close focus range is much sharper than infinity focusing.
Images coming directly from the camera are a bit soft, but prints made with most digital minilabs (which sharpen the images by default) are very sharp. Maybe Fujifil decided to implement less aggressive sharpening in order to avoid double sharpening on the camera and the minilab and avoid the cartoon (2D) look.
Overall, a very good camera and a right direction of development for Fujifilm.

Opinion: This is my first digital camera. My first AF camera even. I want control even in a point-and shoot. So that meant the F11 over the F10.

I wouldn't have been happy settling for the F10, because of the use I put it to most - concert photography. On shutter priority between 1/20 - 1/60, ISO 800, without flash!

A very inconspicuous and respectful way to capture performances. The zoom is just enough to help framing within a crowd, the case is sturdy, the screen is large enough to see where it's pointing when it's over my head, and it has a battery life longer than Coachella.

While the menus can be a pain, it's easier than trying to remember where a lot of buttons are in the dark. No problems leaving the AF light off, unless I'm trying to take a macro shot of my grey cat.

Overall, it has plenty of flexibility and image detail. Enough so that I'm spending my extra money on old film cameras, rather than wishing I could upgrade.

Opinion: I've had this camera for a few months now and am deliriously happy with it. It takes the cake in terms of rapid focussing, especially with the rapid focus mode engaged; it takes great low-light pictures; it has a battery life that has to be seen to be believed; and it is constructed very solidly. The movie mode is nowhere near as good as my wife's Sony DSC P 150 or as good as the one on my Olympus 5060, but that wasn't a major consideration for me.